Ren was back.
His messages popped up on Tulip's screen late that night.
"Home."
Two syllables. No emojis. No follow-up.
Tulip stared at it, waiting. For a meme. For a voice note. For anything that felt like... him.
"Welcome back," she replied, adding a sleepy cat GIF.
He hearted it.
And that... was it..
The thing with silence is, you don't always hear it immediately. It seeps in slow like fog in the background, soft and quiet, until suddenly, you can't see the other person clearly anymore.
The next day, he sent her a YouTube link an anime trailer. No caption.
She replied, "Looks cool!"
But they both knew it used to be more than that.
Where were the excited voice notes? The chaotic screenshots? The midnight "what if we just moved to Japan" plans?
Tulip told herself he must be tired.
He was preparing for boards. So was she.
But still... it felt like opening a fridge you knew had food yesterday, only to find empty shelves and a single slice of cake that no longer looked worth eating.Their shared "dream list" hadn't been touched in over a week.
The shared Google Doc still sat open in her tabs.
Unedited. Unadded to.
She remembered when Ren stayed up with her through an all-nighter her lowest moment before finals helping her memorize formulas using absurd memes and dumb rap lyrics. That night, she laughed so hard she choked on water. He had panicked, yelled through the mic, and she had called him "a dramatic pancake."
She missed that boy.
She thinks "This is what growing up looked like, right? Less chaos. More calm.
Then why did it feel so lonely?"
Now, his replies came hours later.
"How was your day?"
"Fine. Studied. Yours?"
"Same."
She tried to lighten things up sent him a reel about two anime characters arguing over cup noodles. He just reacted with a "😂".
She almost typed, "Are we okay?"
Then deleted it.
He was probably just tired.
No follow-up. No tangent. Just... static.
Even their Discord calls once noisy with chaotic art sessions and shared playlists were now replaced with parallel silences. He'd log in, camera off, mic off. Tulip would draw quietly, pretending this was enough.
It wasn't.
That night, as they wrapped up their so-called study session, she lingered in the call.
"Goodnight, Ren," she said, almost whispering.
There was a pause.
Then, from his side:
"Goodnight."
No voice note. No teasing insult. Not even a "sleep tight, weirdo."
Just... static.